In retrospect, it's obvious. Attracted though Santa Fe, New Mexico,
prodigy Zach Condon may have been to the hyper-emotional voices of the
Balkan Roma, he's not intense enough to share a style with Macedonian
diva Esma Redzepova or Serbian outlaw Saban Bajramovic, whom he knows
even if his alt-rock admirers don't. So here he moves his Beirut
project west, to the tamer turf of Parisian chanson. The raucous Gypsy
brass that gave Beirut's debut album and especially the Lon Gisland EP
some jam, always tame in Condon's hands, is now muted or gone, with
accordion, strings and various keyboards up front -- only not as far
front as Condon, who leaves little doubt that the singer he most
admires in the world is fellow Europhile Rufus Wainwright. Committed
to romantic lyricism above all, Condon isn't quite the tunesmith to
fully justify this passion, compensating with melismatic slurs and a
Gallic disdain for consonants. These tics don't do much for lyrics
he's clearly been working on. "Nantes" is suffused with regret. "Forks
and Knives" wanders hither and yon. "Cliquot" summons healing
melody. Like that.